


Sin Against Sin

by Unquiet_Grave



Series: The Outsider [1]
Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Anal Sex, Bad childhoods, Crude Humor, Dom/sub Play, Explicit Language, F/M, Face-Sitting, Genital Piercing, John Seed is a dirty dirty guy, Light Bondage, Marking, Porn With Plot, Smut, Some Hurt/Comort but mostly boning, Sweaty Bunker Sex, tattooing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 14:16:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14854334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unquiet_Grave/pseuds/Unquiet_Grave
Summary: After a cat-and-mouse chase, the Deputy and John Seed finally hash things out in his bunker. John just wants her to say 'yes', but she's a stubborn one. He'll have to resort to nontraditional methods, the kind Joseph would probably frown upon, to get it out of her.





	1. Fire and Water

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, I finally decided to tackle this. This is my second smutfic ever, and I'm a bit squeamish posting it, but here goes nothing. Skip to Chapter 3 for the smut. First 2 chapters are plot because I'm a sucker for that apparently.
> 
> Also, I saw someone else do this, and thought it was a fun idea. Playlist of recommended songs: "Long Snake Moan" by PJ Harvey, "Potions 'Deliverance Mix'" by Puscifer, "Take You On" by Peaches, "Friedrichshain" by Chelsea Wolfe, "The Disease to Please" by IAMX, "Pink Cellphone" by the Deftones (especially while reading chapter 3!), "The Humbling River" by Puscifer (Maynard's voice does it for me I guess *shrug*).

“Get a load of this nerd,” Adelaide Drubman said, jabbing her manicured nail at a box TV. She dragged a file across her thumb, acting as if they hadn't just pulverized a trailer park full of Peggies. The bullet holes in the wood paneling of the double-wide were still smoking. The TV, already turned on, displayed the emergency broadcast in a hiss and flurry of static.

The Deputy, or Dep, as she was starting to think of herself as, was almost too distracted by the old television to pay any attention. How long had it been since she'd seen one of those things? _Not since high school in the early 2000s._ _Makes me feel old. Where did the time go? Although, I did see a few while workin that meth ring in California, few years back. Dealers can't always be choosers._

“Yo.” Grace nudged her arm with the butt of her gun. “Look. Some kinda' announcement from the Peggies.”

She returned her attention to the rounded glass screen. The 'nerd' Addie had referred to appeared, walking down a stretch of some kind of altar or garden (was this live?). The man turned to face the camera. She recognized him as one of the Seed siblings. He bore a handsomer, younger resemblance to Joseph. Though he was clean, his clothes pressed, there was a grit about him that bothered her. It was the tattoos, the facial hair, the lax posture.

His was an angelic face, one his mother had probably doted on, to the chagrin of his siblings. They should be grateful he was still alive to provoke their envy. All but one of hers was dead: one sister, from a fentanyl overdose, her brother, from a robbery gone 'off the deep end', as the police had so casually put it. Play stupid games; win stupid prizes.

“We are all sinners. Every one of us,” the man began, in a cool, airy voice. Deputy wondered what kind of game this Seed brother was playing.

“That jacket is a sin,” Addie remarked, flicking grit off her nail. She whistled low. “Although I take that nerd comment back. He is HAWT! In a dirty kinda way. I wouldn't mind preachin to his choir, if you catch my drift. Wouldn't mind spreadin em and singin his praises while-”

“Shhhh!” Grace hushed her, cringing. The Deputy turned up the volume.

“-Even the Father knows, deeply, of sin. It's a poison that clouds our minds,” the man said, somber.

 _Poison. You mean like that bliss shit?_ The Deputy scowled, her petite nostrils flaring. She folded toned arms against the loose, sleeveless skull shirt and green jacket she'd recently swapped for her cop uniform. Her sand-colored ankle boots were already tainted with blood and mud.

“What if I told you, you could be free from sin?” he asked, holding out his hands and walking up to several Peggies (less-than-thrilled to be on camera), in what was supposed to be a welcoming display. It only succeeded in creeping her out. Maybe unnerving her was the point.

“Who's the Joel Osteen wannabe?” she asked, over the corny televangelist music.

Grace spat on the floor by her army boots. “John Seed. Joseph's younger brother. Fuckin sadist. He baptizes people, against their will. If they don't convert, he tortures them, til they do.”

 _Classic,_ Dep thought. Real piece of work, these Seed brothers.

Adelaide champed loudly on a piece of Nicorette gum and nodded, respectfully quiet for once. They all leaned in closer to the screen. John clapped his hands on two Peggies before the camera zoomed in on his calm expression and those baby-blues, contrasted so sharply against his fair skin and short, trimmed, dark hair.

 _Damn,_ Dep thought begrudgingly, watching how his beard and lips moved in unison as he talked. _Addie might place every man's worth based on fuckability, but she's right. John Seed IS hot. Book-red. Sharp-dressed. That means I can trust him bout as far as I can throw him._

“That freedom from sin can come just from the power of one word...”

He spread his arms upward, coat stretching tight across his pleasing frame. The camera panned to a lit up sign, to the shouts of the Peggies in the audience: YES!

“Oh, this guy _fucks._ ” Addie tittered. “Look at that smug face. Guy hasn't been free of sin a day in his life. He's as greasy as a damned gopher in a puddle a-”

Her words fell away as Deputy Hudson appeared, bound, gagged, escorted by an armed Peggie over to John. There was enough of a limp in Hudson's step, enough of a slouch to her stance that hinted of what she'd been enduring, at the mercy of the Baptist's hands, ever since Joseph's arrest went tits-up, their police force scattered to the four winds. Dep's stomach tightened into a ball of hot lava. As John continued to speak, circling around Hudson on the screen, a hungry wolf, putting his hands on the shaking policewoman, her anger sparked and ignited.

She gripped the length of her shotgun tightly, the array of black rings she always wore biting into her flesh.

“Evil,” Grace commented, as Hudson continued to stare, wide-eyed, on the screen, doing her best not to pass out or wet herself. “Plain and simple.”

John even had the nerve to swipe his pale fingers across her tanned neck, before walking away, the camera hounding him. To lay a finger on a woman of the law, so brazenly...it worried her more than anything she'd seen with the cult yet. And they had a giant, obnoxious statue that could rival Lady Liberty.

“If you're watching this, know that you have been selected. You will be cleansed. You will confess your sins, and you will be offered atonement. Don't worry, you don't have to do anything.”

Grace and Addie slowly turned to face the Deputy, too locked onto the tv to notice.

“We'll come for you,” John assured, smug. His sleek eyebrows raised, suggestive. He seemed to stare into her soul. Speaking only to her.

“Welcome to Eden's Gate.”

Before either of the women flanking her could react, the Deputy threw down her shotgun, yanked the nail-studded bat from its strap on her back, and smashed the glass screen into spiderwebbed pieces. She'd always wanted to do that, and Mr. Paid Programming had brought out the wrath in her.

“We'll get her back,” Grace said, resting a hand on her heaving shoulders. They watched the TV smoke and spark. “Trust me. Soon as we take Fall's End, we can put a plan into place. Get the Resistance organized. We won't let him win.”

The Dep slowed her breathing, counting to ten, the way they'd taught her in police-mandated therapy, after she'd put her foot through the interrogation wall. Questioning rapists and violent criminals had a way of bringing out the wrath in her, too.

“Yeah. We will,” she huffed. She put an olive-toned hand in her pocket, the chunky rings catching on the seam. “I'm gonna make sure John pays his tithes.”

“You police-types look out for one another, dontcha?” Adelaide clucked, unfazed. “Good ole' boys club. Nice to see it's got estrogen now.”

“Yup,” Dep murmured, ignoring the last part, taking out some shotgun shells, reloading her weapon methodically, staring at the crumpled TV screen. It was blank, but John's eyes burned an image in the back of her mind.

She would watch out for him, all right. This was only gonna end one way: with John Seed, on his knees. Her West Virginian accent, which she had tried to smother since her early years, came out while she was distracted.

“We _shur_ _dew._ ”

...Fast forward, three weeks later. Despite her righteous vows in the trailer, she hadn't come any closer to freeing Hudson. Were it not for several outposts they'd flipped and exterminated of Peggies, she would have thought of herself as an utter failure of a policewoman. She had even met John, in person and failed to kill him. They seemed to circle one another like binary stars, and always the sparks flew whenever they got too close to one another.

The more she explored and helped Holland Valley, the more she learned about the cunning, marked, tattooed man who had imposed his reign over them.

And the more she learned, the more she despised what he'd done to these good people. And they WERE good. Fall's End was a better town to her than her childhood one had ever been: a drug haven and impoverished coal-mining town, deep in the gray-green inferno of the Appalachians. You haven't known slow, creeping hell until you've known winter in a meth town.

Speaking of creeping hell...the Deputy shifted on her haunches, her legs falling asleep as numbness crept up her shins and into her knees.

“Don't recognize your accent,” Hurk whispered (shouted quietly). They were crouched behind a shed by a wide, noisy creek. Mosquitoes swarmed and bounced against their faces, stirred up from the gravel below. They'd been asked to rescue some hostages, ripe for baptism by the cult.

“Where're ya from?” he asked.

On the creek bed, a gaggle of John's Peggies gathered around three hostages, readying their conversion. One of them unfurled a whip, snapping it in the air smartly. Just in case scripture wasn't effective enough.

“LA. Appalachia, originally,” she answered quickly, holding her shotgun vertical, her back scraping off white paint as she pressed around the shed corner, getting a better look.

“Yeah, but, like, where in Appalachia? That's several states' worth of mountains, ma'am. Like more than two at least.”

Two things pissed her off: ma'am (she was a seasonable, viable 28 years old!) and Hurk's volume, which seemed to only have one setting: Hurk.

He fiddled with his RPG, and she prayed it wouldn't be like her middle-school boyfriend and shoot off prematurely. John's precious Peggies were really stirring shit up down on the sandy bank, chanting verses, hollering, shoving their gun barrels in the hostages' faces. Taunting them. She had seen drug lords do it to cops, once, during a bust gone bad. Only instead of a water baptism, there had been a letting of blood in the streets.

She slapped a bloodthirsty mosquito off her neck, annoyed.

Hurk pressed, “Atlanta? Nashville? Or somewhere more north? Carolinas? West Virginia? I can tell it's West Virginia, isn't it? Isn't it?”

“Thereabouts,” she muttered, mainly just to shut him up. She watched the Peggies uncap a vat of the green bliss gunk, the eyes of the hostages rolling in the backs of their heads. White-hot anger stirred in her guts.

 _Easy, Deputy,_ Whitehorse's mellow, scratchy voice said in the back of her mind. She always pictured his handlebar mustache moving along with it. _Breathe._ _Count to ten..._

 _One._ It was one thing to grow up in meth-ville, in abject poverty, as she had, but to have such abundance, such community, only for this cult to come in and destroy it ( _Two!_ )...now that was something she couldn't abide. _Three._ It made disposing of them that much easier. When she had taken the badge, she had never dreamed she'd be slaughtering Americans by the dozens. _Four._

She waited for the Peggies to turn their backs. The middle one, the smelly-looking, shirtless fellow doing all the preaching, held his white book up to the sky and cried out some gibberish or other ( _Five_ ). She hadn't been raised with any particular religion, and knew only two laws: don't spill Papa's drink, and don't talk to cops. Funny how things changed.

The one with the whip cracked it again. The female hostage, who had been stripped down to her bra, shrieked as the cruel leather bit into her shoulder.

_TEN!_

Dep blasted the preacher first, and he went down with 70% less of his brains and skull. Heart thudding in her ears, she recalled, as she always did when shit hit the fan, the first time she'd shot someone. It hadn't been in Hope County, nor after she'd earned her badge. Much earlier than that, and still nobody knew, nobody except her father, and he was dead. Buried as he'd lived, with a bottle of Jack Daniels tucked close by.

“Nice shot,” Hurk complimented. “So, uh, when do I make stuff go boom-boom again?”

She held up a finger to wait. She'd expected more of John's goons, but there were only three. Her temper driving her, she was booked it down the creek and onto the bank, taking out another Peggie with a blast from the double-barreled shotty. Just the one with the whip remained. She pumped the shotgun and took aim. He must have seen too many _Indiana Jones_ movies, because he lashed out, the tip of the whip seizing her gun, striking it from her arms. It landed in the sand with a soft thud, way out of reach.

“Fuck!” she cried. Now that was a rookie mistake if she ever saw one. He retracted the whip, watching her closely.  
  
“Gon' pay, sinner!” the Peggie bellowed through his beard, his comrades' blood drenching his shabby clothes. “Gonna make yew suffer!”

 _Your BO is suffering enough. Haven't these guys heard of the healing power of deodorant?_ She considered diving out of the way, toward the water, but that would bring her in the path of the hostages, and that whip had some nasty spurs on the end of it. Instead she threw herself to the soft sand, inhaling a big minty cloud of bliss. The whip cracked loudly, puffing up glittering silt, missing her by inches. She rolled aside and looked toward the shed, hearing gunshots. Hurk had switched to a handgun, but instead of aiming at the whip-Peggie, his pudgy, American-flag back was turned to her.

Shit. Reinforcements. Too scattered to RPG 'em. She scrambled to her feet, slipping in sand, and made a dive for her shotgun...

...a few seconds later, she dove under water, as the shed exploded, taking out five of the reinforcements. Hurk's RPG did the trick, a little too well. But the hostages were freed. They were already running into the woods, whooping their thanks. Problem was, the explosion stunned her, and she wasn't a good floater. She sank, swallowing cold, fishy creek water, a weird ringing in her ears. A musical, feminine voice tickled her spine and whispered sweet promises. Maybe she would stay down here, after all, in the murky darkness. It was kinda nice.

Someone seized her by the armpits, wrenching her out of the depths, pulling her onto the other side of the bank, coughing up nothing but water, inhaling water, her entire being revolved around water...

...She blacked out. When she came to, the world was sparkling and soft. Someone had marched her from a van, into the shallows of the riverbed. A Peggie shoved her under, and water jetted up her nose, making her go cross-eyed. Those ten years in that coal-mining town, water had been one of her few comforts as a girl. Their closest neighbors, a few miles down in the woods, had one of those inflatable swimming pools with the white plastic deck, and she used to make the long trek on hot summers just to feel that cool, crisp water, the weightlessness of it, carefree for a short time.  
  
“ATONE!”

They dunked her, over and over. In between dunks, as she gasped for air like a newborn, shivering, she heard a familiar voice preaching:

“...and walk through his gates, unto Eden.”

She was escorted to the shallows at last, sloshing, not for the pearly gates, but for a van that smelled of sweat, piss, and oil. But John Seed stopped the Peggie behind her, and handed the book of his faith off to the faithful. His hands were now empty, something she would learn was a bad sign.

 _Shit n' Shinola,_ she thought. Her jacket felt like it weighed eighty pounds. Her legs were weak twigs, barely supporting her. The ringing in her ears was muffled somewhat by the water. Fireflies drifted down in a slow-moving snowstorm of glowing bodies. _Beautiful...why was everyone so angry again?_

“Not this one,” a clear, male voice cut through the bliss, smooth as marmalade. He walked up to her through the water.

Deputy and John stared at one another, face to face, for the first time. He was damp from the river, the humid, sweet summer night air, from dunking near-drowning people under, seeking that word he loved so dearly. The top buttons of his blue shirt were popped, showing a sinful amount of collar bone and the line of his sternum. He was a thin man, but he projected strength, and moved with power.

 _You don't scare me_ , _asshole_ , she wanted to say. _Whitehorse might call me Rookie, but I been up against a wall a time or two with some unsavory folk and come out swingin._

What came out of her mouth instead was a torrent of water. She coughed and sputtered, snot running down her lips and chin. Her brown and gold hair was plastered to her face and neck. John calmly regarded her person with the same tepid mask he'd worn on the tv. But she thought she detected some malice in his mouth, some calculated rage hiding just behind his big, expressive eyes. She'd killed an awful lot of his precious converts, after all.

“This one isn't clean,” he judged. He put his hands on her. The fireflies vanished in a puff of smoke.

It got to her more than it should have. Countless hours in interrogation rooms, chipping away bluntly at the worst liars, the dregs of humanity, men who could read you like a book and pry under your skin, had taught her to keep her head clear and in the game.

Yet something about John's hands on her, that pretty face, enraged her into stupidity. Even the lewd drawl of his last name irked her: _See-uhd._

“Screw you!” she spat, kicking at him.

John's lips upturned into a knowing smile, perhaps seeing his own defiances of the past inside her. He could see why Joseph liked her. And that meant special treatment. A little extra care. If he was being completely honest, he had been looking forward to this, ever since she'd crashed in that helicopter and wandered into his neck of the woods.

He pushed her neck under the water, and she knew, just by the sheer force, by the steel lock of his arms, that he wasn't going to let her up for a long, long time. He knew how to wait it out, his timing perfect. In her clawing of him, she found the center of his jeans, and either that was his side piece come askew, or he was enjoying this particular baptism a little TOO much.

...then the Father intervened. Saved her from John's fury. And she'd been rescued.

The second time she saw him was a fluke, one that ended in fire. The Resistance was chasing a Peggie fuel truck convoy. Dep rode in back of a Peggie armed pickup, recently commandeered (aka forcibly extracted, the cultists left KO'd with their asses in downward-facing dog). She had a couple of guns for hire driving, providing backup out the windows, locals who had an axe to grind against John and the Pegs, and there weren't enough axes to go around. Plenty of guns, though.

The fuel convoy came rushing around the bend by the apple orchard, the air smelled violently of apples, silver barrels flaring under the sunlight. They took out two of the gasoline trucks in a swarm of gunfire, the drivers sent straight to their maker in a fiery explosion that singed the fibers on their clothes, the third escaping them. Their own truck had been crippled in the effort, laying in a ditch on its side, wheels spinning.

Bleeding, bruised, almost totally deaf, Dep ran in pursuit on foot, trying to make it over the steep hill where she knew the truck would be coming around any second. She was no sprinter, but she had good thighs, sturdy legs, and endurance for days.

“Deputy!” one of the guns for hire shouted. “He's comin! Get down!”

 _There!_ she thought, thinking he'd meant the driver. Coming now, about to cross the wreckage-strewn road below. She raised her handgun, lining up the driver in her sights, crouching down by a boulder at the top of the hill. Before she could take the shot, bullets crunched into the rock by her head, shards cutting into her skin. Too high to be the driver returning fire. She sneezed, inhaling dust, and dove down the hill, rolling into the tall, tall grass.

The truck was going to pass her soon, she could hear its engine roaring. Looking around wildly for the gunman, she spotted him.

In the opposite field, across the dancing orange flames in the road, beyond the black, oily smoke, he stood, legs spread wide, overcoat billowing like something out of a spaghetti western, his gun turned on her. Same glacial expression, his empty hand and shoulder dipped, relaxed. He had come out of his bunker, just to see her.

The driver was still barreling down the road. She was out of his sight, not at risk of being run over. But she WAS well within explosion range. John kept his weapon raised, turning it in the direction of the truck. Deputy's innards twisted like tangled fishing wire. Fucker was going to shoot his own man just to kill her! She knew he had a grudge, a borderline obsession, but this. No. This was personal. Joseph had told John to convert her, not kill her, but her voodoo must have rubbed him the wrong way. He was gonna throw that doll into the cauldron flames.

 _Move,_ John thought, his finger on the trigger, feet planted firmly in the earth. _Run like hell. I know you want to, Deputy. You always run from the truth. But I will make you see the light._

SHIT! She scraped and darted up the steep hill as fast as she could.

He fired. The truck exploded behind her in a brilliant flash; she felt the overbearing heat and pressure, before she was rocked clean off the hill. She went flying, legs and arms bent in a u-shape. She never felt herself hitting the ground, only sailed into blackness, not altogether different from the weightlessness of the neighbor's pool, and there was that funny man again! The one with the sunglasses, filming her with his handheld camera...

...The Deputy came to in the subterranean gloom. The first thing she noticed was a chandelier, framed by rack after jagged rack of deer antlers. Nice. Quaint. These cultists sure were creative. She looked down, into the pool of yellow light. Her stomach turned. Hudson, her face streaked with dirty tears, was strapped to a chair, mouth duct-taped shut. It was hot, and she was drenched in sweat, breathing heavily. That's what the room smelled of: sweat, and iron.

Her own mouth was bound by a cloth gag that reeked faintly of gasoline. It was giving her a bitch of a headache, and headaches made her cranky. Moisture already started to pool in the small of her back, dampening her temples. Hellish light glowed from behind the grated walls. Not much else in the room, save for a workman's table. She doubted they were there to build birdhouses.

“Mmmmphhh!”

She made eye contact with Hudson. There was only so much to be conveyed through a look, but Dep tried to project bravery, encouragement. Hudson's eyes were hollow, white shells. Her face and posture showed the strain of weeks of interrogation and imprisonment. Bent, but not snapped. Not yet. Perhaps soon. She was borderline delirious with fear. Like a contagion, the Deputy felt that same fear creep into her own breast.

It sang an evil little song:  _Strike up the banjos and the tambourine, we're gonna have ourselves a righteous shindig shortly!_

What torments had Hudson endured, at the hands of this bastard? How many times had he dragged her in there, trying to extract a confession? Had he left his mark on her, or was he saving it for later, going to make a public display of things, perhaps? John certainly had a taste for the grandiose, if that massive ranch was any indication. The man liked to take his time, she knew, make a show of things. Draw things out. He was an attorney and an artist, after all. She wouldn't put anything past him to film their most desperate, humiliating moments.

Were they being filmed, now? That set her heart pounding, and she searched the room.

They heard someone turning the wheel to the door, and Hudson wailed into her duct tape. But Deputy's eyes were fixed on a tripod and camera, which she had just noticed after her silent contemplation. The sight of the studio-quality camera was like a giant insect to her, one which had to be crushed before it could sting. She loathed it with all her being.

The door screeched open. In stepped the Bunker Master himself, Lord of the Preppers, stripped of his overcoat, his cobalt sleeves rolled up. He whistled a colorful tune, carrying a yellow toolbox like a lunch pail, as if he'd kissed the missus goodbye and was off for another hard day's work. He set it down on the table with a thud and began rummaging through it. Deputy could hear things clinking inside, and she thought she saw a screwdriver, or something else long and moan-inducing.

_Definitely ain't making birdhouses. Where's a razor when you need one? Maybe some scissors. Shit, I'd take a safety pin at this point. And that camera's really giving me the crawlies._

“My...parents (he said it like it was a legal necessity) were the first ones to teach me about the power of 'yes',” John began, turning to face her.

He braced against the table with one lean, muscular arm, cool, collected. Psychopathic. She had seen that look before. The Deputy understood at once. This was about her, plain and simple. Hudson was a pawn to get her to do what he wanted. Selfishly, she wished the woman would quit crying. It wasn't helping matters, setting her nerves on edge.  _Hard to fuckin breathe, let alone think._

Her eyes darted to the camera again. John followed her eyes, taking note, but he proceeded to give his speech about the power of 'yes', really selling it to the jury. Doubtless it was meant to inspire terror, maybe get her confession gears lubricated. At his rising voice, the passion leaving that cut-up chest and rugged face, something was getting lubricated, all right, but it wasn't her guilt. Stapling strips of people's flesh to the wooden board above the table was a nice touch. The tattoo gun didn't concern her really, she was inked all over, where her clothes covered her up. Pierced a good number of times, too, mostly through the ears.

Still, the inflamed, scarred tattoo on his chest was worrisome. Heavy-handed, the artist that did that. And she wondered if the fleshy license plates had been removed postmortem, or cut from fresh meat.

As John menaced them with his words, Hudson's terror clouded the room like a foul odor. The Deputy resisted it with all her might. Even when John pulled her shirt down, exposing her sports bra, yanking at the elastic, revealing the top swells of her breasts, even when he started sponging off her chest, fingering the tattoo gun, talking about Joseph re-orienting him back to sanity, even then she didn't feel fear.

In fact, she felt a stab of pity, one she quickly froze over, before it could spread.

“The best gift isn't the one you get. It's the one you  _give_ ,” he said softly, close enough for her to smell the wax in his beard. Meaning what he'd said, he set his hands on her knees, lightly, without anything untoward. She shuddered anyway. Her own hands twitched against the chair arms, her rings clinking against the plastic.

“Giving takes courage,” John went on, pulling away, walking over to Hudson, digging through the toolbox. He was all passion as he said, “Courage to own your sin. To etch it onto your flesh, and carry it's burden. And when you have endured, when you have truly began to atone, to CUT IT OUT like a cancer and display it for all to see...my God, that's courage.

 _Someone told him to get stuff off his chest n' he took it literally,_  Deputy thought.  _Great._

He hefted a tool and said, “I'm going to teach you courage. Teach you how to say YES.”

Hudson moaned again, struggling. At last, John leaned that slim body of his against the table. His eyes had been on her the entire time. The question came: which of them wanted to confess first?

_If there is a heaven, I better fuckin get into the VIP section after this._

Deputy nodded instantly. Hudson screamed her protests. Nope, not helping her resolve at all. She clenched her stomach tight as John approached, closing the gap between them with a few quick strides (he wasn't very tall, but damn was he fast) and he brandished the tool close to her eyeball. He appeared overjoyed, but it was a corrupt happiness.

“Yes. YES! You're not gonna regret this, I promise. Now before we begin, I think it's only proper, that Deputy Hudson goes back to her room. Confessions are meant to be private, after all!”

He flung the implement at the wall and wheeled Hudson out, Hudson screaming muffled no's, and Deputy realized all of Hudson's fear was for  _her_ , not for herself.

 _Don't you fall to pieces, girl. Not now._ Dep inhaled through her nose, taking a deep, slow breath. For a few seconds, she sat, listening, making sure John was truly gone. Then she started pushing the chair for the stairs, scritchin' and scratching across the floor like a disobedient kid in time-out. Not much farther now. Only a few feet left.

She mentally prepared herself for the fall, gazing up at the ceiling.


	2. The Confession

“Leaving so soon!?” John cried.

The Deputy yelped like a dog with its tail pulled. His hands seized her shoulders from behind, spinning her around so fast, her stomach took a second to catch up. She kicked out against his legs, knocking the chair over and falling flat on her back. John stumbled, but regained his balance, nimbly stepping up to her as she rocked left-to-right on the floor, looking up at him helplessly through the 'Y' of her legs and feet.

He stood over her, clucking his tongue, hands held aloft so she could see the black tattoos on his forearms, his thighs spread dominantly.

“A valiant effort, Deputy. And I must say, I was moved by your performance, volunteering so quickly in Hudson's stead. Did you think you were sparing her from something? You have yet to learn, that the act of confession is a holy, intimate matter. You can no sooner spare Hudson than you can spare a lamb due for slaughter, or the virgin on her wedding night.”

Deputy blushed despite herself. John put a boot between her legs, onto the base of the chair, and pressed down, springing her back up. A surprising amount of strength in those legs. The clumsy force of it brought her forward, almost tipping her the other way, but his hands stopped her, planted firmly against her shoulders. Too close for comfort. Her hot skin was slick, her jacket long since removed, her stretched, baggy shirt hanging down, her chest heaving (never had she been so grateful for the python-grip of sports bras).

Running through the backwoods like a wild-woman for the past day and a half, she couldn't have smelled like a spring daisy, but John brought his forehead against her damp one anyway, pressing against her bangs. She'd seen Joseph do the same to him, in a gesture of affection. The closeness of him rang true, vibrating a tantalizing note down her center, taking root at the crux of her legs.

Then her situation dawned on her again, and it was gone.

“I am so _eager_ to change your mind,” he confessed. She considered headbutting him, but thought better of it. “You have no idea how much it gladdens my heart, to see you finally opening up. Even after all the trouble you've caused me. You're...a rambunctious woman.”

_Aw, shucks. You're gonna make be blush!_

He lingered with his head against hers for another moment, and she shivered. Wheeling her back over to the table, he pulled out a sheet of paper from his jeans pocket.

“Let's get started, shall we?”

She could only wonder what was printed on it as he read, a heavenly smile on his face. His free hand seized a small, cruel-looking screwdriver from the toolbox, twirling it against the wood, drilling it slowly.

 _She has no idea what I know,_ John thought, bemused. _None at all. Look at that glare. She's brimming with the need to confess. I must make this sinner realize._

“You transferred to Montana from the LAPD six months ago,” he started, as if in court. “What happened? Did you get tired of tacos and earthquakes?”

 _Not without humor, our John Seed,_ Dep thought. _Guess them foster parents didn't stamp out all the funny. And I like men who can make me laugh._

“Or maybe...you ran into some trouble?” John pried, eyeing her over the sheet of paper.

She shrugged. Wasn't gonna be able to tell him much with the rag over her mouth. He didn't buy her nonchalant act. He'd seen it before.

“So dismissive! We need to incite more...passion...in you,” he mused. He knew this sinner by heart, he just wasn't ready to reveal it yet. He hadn't graduated from a top university with a law degree, to have shirked the research portion of his education.

 _I'll incite my boot in your crotch, once I get outta this chair,_ Dep thought.

“Now, I couldn't find everything there is to know about you, but I know a great deal,” he said, tracing the end of the screwdriver across the sheet. He pierced a hole in it with a tearing sound. The tendons in his fingers stood out, a few veins in his arms, too. He almost had the arms of a mechanic.

“Let me just see for myself.”

He set the paper and screwdriver down, strode over, and removed the smelly rag. She took a proper breath of warm air, considering him. John's fair skin was breaking out in dampness, but she knew it wasn't from pushing Hudson, who couldn't have weighed more than 120.

Something else was exciting him. His ears and pointed nose were turning red, as if from drink. It was quite fetching. She looked away from his intense stare, staring up at the antlers.

“Say something,” he ordered, twisting the rag in his hands. “Anything.”

“Fuck ya'll!”

He laughed, flashing white teeth, slapping his knee with the rag. “Aha, there's that mountain accent! I see all the time in LA hasn't washed your tongue clean.”

“Can't detect the Georgian in yours,” she replied, watching the twang on her vowels. She knew he was educated, that he was the legal arm of the cult, but he didn't need to know what she knew.

“Let's stay on the topic of 'you',” John redirected, turning around, and she enjoyed the view of his shoulders. He picked up the screwdriver again, pacing. Faster movements from him meant danger, but he was going slow for now.

“You moved to California from West Virginia, around the age of ten. Did your parents get tired of spitting tobacco, strumming banjos on the porch?”

Deputy glared at him. “No one plays banjo in my fambl-, er, family. Don't chew tobacco, neither.”

“Good! Tobacco is a vice. What vices do you have? Consider this a pre-confession.”

She smiled at him, wondering if she could make that redness spread to his entire face.

“I have the propensity to enjoy really big dicks.”

That one caught him off guard. He sighed, disappointed. Vulgarity in the face of conflict. He'd seen it before. How many women had thrown themselves against him, mid-slice or mid-blow, offering up their bodies in exchange for relief? How many times did he have to refuse them? Deny them, even though he sometimes wondered what their skin would taste like, what their bodies would feel like, wrapped up in him?

“You'll never get to heaven with a mouth like that,” he chided.

She sat back, dubious. “Maybe I belong in hell.”

“I wouldn't JOKE about that,” he snarled, slamming the screwdriver into the wood, gouging it. “The state of your soul is a serious matter!”

“Is it? Let Hudson go, and I'll name every single flea that ever bit me,” she offered. It was worth a shot.

“I need you to take this _seriously_ ,” he warned, pacing back and forth. He raised his hands to his head. “HOW do I do that, you ask? I have a number of ways. Let me show you.”

He picked up the screwdriver, and bent over her. He pressed the tip of it against the entrance to her ear.

“How would like to lose an eardrum?” he asked. “Maybe make you deaf to the devil, since he bends your ear so often.”

“A little weird, but I'll try anything once,” she quipped. Inwardly, she was squirming.

The cool tip of the screwdriver twisted like a q-tip in her ear. She cringed away on instinct. As she'd predicted, he didn't use it on her. But he used other methods. Slapping her (CONFESS!). Screaming at her (ATONE!). Twisting her fingers (but not breaking them). Throwing her half-assed about the room, into walls. He didn't seem too eager to put marks on her. Perhaps Joseph had given special orders. But with each sarcastic reply or stony silence from her, he upped his game.

After a good hour or two of the stuff, he was forced to stop. Deputy's head drooped, her body smarting. Her ass was stuck to the seat of the chair, drenched. She could really use a drink. Usually dudes bought her one before they threw her around a room like that.

Pacing about like an agitated lion, John was sweating bullets. He unbuttoned his vest, shirking it off, then his shirt, now soaked to a dark blue. He threw these aside, exposing his marred, tattooed chest, his manly shoulders, thin layers of muscle gleaming in the red, red light. A lusty male demon, stalking to and fro, frothing at the mouth, rutting for her confession.

When he finally did start leaving marks on her, a bruise here, a burn there, a slice or two of the skin, still she resisted. In fact, she didn't make a peep. Only glared at him with the same contempt, obstinate as a bull.

Eventually he slammed a lighter down, throwing the nail he had heated and used on her several times across the room. It left her breathless, shaking, but silent as ever.

Spittle flying, he shouted in her face, his own red and furious, “Confess to me! It is your ONLY way out of here. Don't you SEE that?”

“Looky here,” Dep said, craning her head far to the right. She exposed the nape of her neck, revealing a series of round, pink scars, not much bigger than a nail head.

“That's where my old man put out his cigarettes on me, when I spilled his drink. I was _eight._ If you're gunna torture me, that's fine. But I ain't gunna tell you nuthin. Pain's an old friend of mine. Let's me know what's what.”

John looked at the scars, and shut his mouth, realizing he was dealing with a very, very difficult woman. But she wasn't totally impregnable. Nobody was. He grasped the arms of her chair, leaning against them for support. He was bent so far over her, she could see every detail in the skin of his chiseled abdomen. Could make out the line of his happy trail, leading down into the hem of his jeans, past the heavy belt buckle. In addition to the aftershave, she smelled the faintest whiff of sweat and musk.

He moved away from her, cursing. She sensed danger as his anger reached a peak. He flipped the work table over, scattering tools everywhere.

“What could be inside you, so terrible, you can't breathe a word?” he demanded, jabbing a finger at her, poking her in the chest. The tendons along his arm popped, and she faintly wondered what his arms would feel like locked around her. But she wasn't gonna do shit with that camera on them.

He saw a change in her face. Her eyes darted to the camera. Always the camera. Usually people were too focused on him to look anywhere else. Suddenly, they were in dangerous waters, he sensed. Good. She had a whole ocean to swim across yet.

“Something bothering you, Deputy?”

“Are you filmin all this?” she asked, through a split lip.

“I'm asking the questions,” he reminded her severely. “And yes. Every confession is recorded. For Joseph and I to review. And to educate others, if needed. Joseph is...most eager to review yours. He has taken such a great investment in your soul, Deputy.”

She found it somewhat amusing he didn't call her by her real name, even though he must have had it on that stupid rap sheet of his.

“Turn it off. I'll tell you what you wanna hear,” she said tiredly. One of her eyes was swelling shut. “Just turn that thing off, okay?”

“It is not about what I WANT to hear. You haven't been paying attention, Deputy.”

Curious, John strode over to the camera. Her body language tensed. He swiveled the head of it. Her face darkened, her lip quivering. _Interesting._

“What did you do?” he accused. He steepled his fingers together. “Maybe a little web-camming, to pay the way through school? Did you put on shows for men?”

The thought made his dick twitch involuntarily. She had a nice, tight body under those baggy, weather-beaten clothes. He'd snuck more than a glance or two at her plump ass, running around in those tight jeans, begging for hands to touch it. Having dabbled in the adult entertainment industry, he had an appraiser's eye. It was her attitude, the scowl lines in her face, her defiant hazel eyes, that he found lacking. And he didn't care for all those rings on her fingers, which she clicked together often when she was angry.

“I didn't go to college,” she told him, rings a'clinkin. “Went straight to the academy. School wasn't my thing.”

“Have you ever done pornographic films, then?” he asked, sly. “Perhaps during an adventurous time in your life?”

“...Didn't you?”

He paused, then nodded. There was no shame in the truth. Swallowing one's sins only led to more pain. He was very in touch with himself, and being open about his indiscretions no longer put a bad taste in his mouth. The bad often mixed with the good, he found.

It all tasted the same to him.

“As I said, I opened every hole in my body, received everywhere,” he reminded her, standing still by the camera.

Deputy raised an eyebrow. John the Baptist was a lot filthier than she'd realized. He was growing on her, damn it.

“Men and women?”

His honesty appealed to her, as he answered, “Yes. I know the pleasures of the human body well. I still do. It's important for me to know them.”

He picked the camera up from the tripod, carrying it toward her. She was all baleful stares again, retracting into her chair like a snail.

“So I can know the other end of pleasure. Pain. And all its secret places.”

“Get that thing away from me.”

“You shy away from the camera more than any of my other tools! What's wrong?” John laughed, exasperated. He crept closer, taunting her, kicking his feet out, holding the camera up to his eyes-

-at that move, her face filled with fear. For the first time, fear. It cut through her like his blades and tools had failed to do. It wasn't an adult's fear, either. A pure look. A child's fear. He knew it. He had experienced it.

He stopped. Smiled icily. Set the camera down.

“OFF,” the Deputy demanded. An unmistakable crack in her voice. “I want the fuckin thing turned OFF. You mind me, John Seed, or so help me!"

Her use of his name upset him. Disrespectful. This was HIS bunker. He shrugged. “I'm afraid I can't. We need to document every last piece of your confession.”

He picked it up, shoulders tensing, and started carrying it back to the tripod. He mounted it once more, the green light flashing.

“TURN IT OFF, DAMN IT!” she screamed. “If you're gonna do this to me, at least turn it off! Please!”

All right. His amusement over, he stormed up to her. “Tell me. Confess! What did you do?”

“What did _I_ do?” she repeated, aghast. Disgusted. “I didn't do a thing!”

John shook his head, sweat trailing down his brow. “We both know that's a lie. There's always something. Some little sin that you tried to tuck away. It needs to come out. I'm trying to HELP you, Deputy.”

“F-fine,” she huffed. “If I tell you, will you get it out of here?"

“I can't make any promises. But it would be a start.”

Deputy nodded. _Okay, fine. Jerk._ Besides, she was so damn tired.

“When I was a girl, back home, in the mountains,” she started, licking her cut lips. John remained in place, watching intently, arms folded against his chest. “I used to go swimming. At the neighbor's. During the summer. Sometimes I would go by myself. There was a man. A man with sunglasses.”

John looked away. He knew where this was going, and despite all his experience, he felt the cruel, iron part of himself shatter a little. Deputy sped up her words, determined, no longer feeling humiliation.

“I would be playing, as kids do. Diving in. Climbing out. He filmed me a couple times, and one day I asked him why he was doing that. He told me...I was his movie star.”

She looked up at him, surprised to find herself crying. She wiped her tears on her shoulder, annoyed.

“I felt proud, you know? Like special or something. I was happy he was doing that. I _liked_ the attention.”

John remained silent. Hadn't he told himself that, making those films, during every lewd encounter that left him sore and greedily satisfied? Every time his adoptive parents put their hands on him? He would sing whatever tune they wanted to hear, endure whatever pain, and eventually he learned to love it. Learned to swallow hate and dole it out through his version of love.

She shut her eyes and shook her head. “Eventually, Papa found out. He found where the guy lived and beat the shit outta him. Almost killed him. Papa, I wanted him to be proud of me, so I took his gun and...well, I'd heard him say men like that was better off dead. He wouldn't shut up about it. So I went to that man's house and I pointed that gun, didn't even know what I was doin, really. Shot him while he was pissin in the bushes. Killed him with one bullet. Lucky shot.”

John glanced at the camera, suddenly feeling like the guilty party.

Deputy sighed. This was turning into a downer session, fast. She finished, “Dad and my uncle disposed of the body and the gun. We never told a soul. I'm the last one alive that knows.”

John asked, “Is that why you became a cop? To make amends for your wrongdoing?”

She recovered and grinned, a little blood on her teeth. “Nah. Pop was impressed; said I was a natural. He got me my first gun n' taught me how to shoot after that. Best thing he ever did.”

John scoffed, one hand dangling at his side, the other placed on the camera. He snorted, incredulous. Then he laughed, a genuine sound, from deep within his belly. The corners of his mouth twitched upward, bringing out his cheekbones. He wasn't used to it. Deputy smiled back, but her eyes were still fixed on the tripod.

Shaking his head, defeated, John unplugged the camera and took it out of the room. She heard the door to the chamber shut behind him.

When he returned, he came back with a large, squat, opaque bottle in his hand. The shapely fingers on his other hand pinched two shot glasses together. He uncorked the bottle (tequila, she recognized that expensive label). Spitting the cap to the floor, he poured two shots to the brim. She licked her lips without even thinking about it.

“One drinker recognizes another,” he told her. “I have given up this vice, too. But since we're off the record...”

He lifted the glass to her lips. A peace offering. An apology. His face said sincerity, and she felt an invisible tug in her belly. This wasn't over, she knew, but the malice had left him. They weren't strangers anymore.

She gulped it down, wincing at the burn. He drank his own, and poured another round. The booze took the edge off some of her wounds, but she hadn't been paying them much mind. John brought a hand to his neck, cracking it, and set the bottle down by his boots.

There was a perfectly good table to her left, but John seemed to prefer the floor.


	3. Sin Against Sin

“One way or another, you WILL confess your sins to me,” John insisted. “And if pain does nothing...then I will show you, another way.”

 _You have to love them, John,_  Joseph's words echoed. John's version of 'love' was starkly different from his brother's, though. It ran a few shades darker.

The Deputy's breath snared in her throat for a moment. John unbuckled his belt, sliding it from his trim, shirtless waist. It rustled as he did so, like the garter snakes she'd used to hear as a girl, moving through tall, tall grass. It was brown. Real leather. Thick. This was either about to get a lot worse, or very kinky. She could handle kinky. The men she'd known throughout her life had taught her some things. Sometimes, she'd taught them a few things. She wondered if he was her equal, standing there before her, or if she was wandering off the map of her sexual experience.

Whatever the case, John was not some chaste, schoolboy Bible-thumper. More like a cask of something aged in the earth, in the dirt and rocks and mud. She was suddenly dying to wet her lips with him. Any place would do. He was looking pretty thirsty himself, a telltale swell behind the zipper of his jeans.

“Least you bought me a drink, this time,” she cracked, looking up at him under heavy eyelids, one of them purple. That tequila he'd given her was smoothing everything over, and she was feeling extra slick.

Her Appalachian drawl was coming out of her. John heard it plainly. The accent was like sweet honey to his ears.

“Though you coulda gave me some salt to lick,” Deputy added.

 _Not very subtle, was she?_ John feigned ignorance. His smile read otherwise. “What are you implying, Deputy?”

He inched forward and looped his belt around her neck, clasping it, collaring her. She was still his to work on, after all. As he tightened it, snug, leaving plenty of room for her to breathe, his zippered crotch was brought dangerously close to her face. He was used to having heads at that level, but there was no mistaking the pink flush on his face. Not solely from the tequila, that betraying color. Good Lord, even his fingers were turning pink. She wondered if other unseen parts of him were.

 _I like where this interrogation is going_ , the Dep thought, resisting the urge to pet him, coax the snake out of the grass to play. _Continue, John._

“Just a precaution, in case you get skittish,” he assured her, as if she were an untamed thing. He reached down and stroked her shoulder-length hair, partially matted. Every bit of her felt greasy, tainted. Her clothes stuck to her like a second skin. She wanted to be shed free of them.

“Get me outta this,” she breathed. Not the collar, he knew. The chair.

He picked up a knife from the spilled toolkit, slicing through the duct tape binding her arms. She was still a little wary of his intent. This was the man who had carved his signature into almost every Peggie in the county. A man who, like her, wasn't afraid to hurt, to kill to get what he wanted.

 _Still, just might get that fuck in that Adelaide was so insistent about, after all,_ Deputy thought, with a confident smirk. Her arms freed at last, she wrenched them out of the duct tape cocoons, clenching and unclenching her fists, rubbing the sticky glue that had pulled out some of the downy hairs.

John kicked scattered tools out of the way, the end of the belt still grasped firmly in his right hand. The left one was empty. She inhaled as he pulled her upwards, almost out of the chair. She went willingly with him, giving into the belt, rising slowly to meet his touch, her chest brushing against his slippery torso.

His free hand went to her face, stroking it. He placed his thumb on her bottom lip, pressing down. There was some black under the nail bed, she saw. He was dirtier than the clean, ex-heathen he liked to present himself as. She pressed the tip of her tongue to his thumb pad, the lightest touch.

“We will take our time,” he murmured. The brush of her tongue, the cushiony softness of her lip, sent very ungodly thoughts through his mind. Whatever methods he had at his disposal, he would use on her. The cameras weren't rolling. Joseph didn't have to know. He had wanted this, the moment he stepped past the wreckage of the fuel trucks and saw her, through the flames and smoke.

 _Sure of himself, as always_ , Deputy observed. She thought he might kiss her then, their faces close enough to do the deed.

Instead he let go, removing his thumb from her mouth. If he wasn't gonna kiss her, she would go to him. She tried to stand, but he put a hand on her shoulder, shoving her down.

“Ah, ah. I need you to stay seated for this portion of the confession,” he instructed. “What's your rush? You're not getting out of here, without my help.”

“You underestimate me,” she told him. “But fine.”

He grabbed the tattoo gun from the smaller table to his right. Gave it an exploratory buzz. The familiar, rhythmic pulse of it was somewhat of an aphrodisiac. She found tattoos enjoyable, like someone scratching her during strenuous lovemaking, only harder.

“I got nothing else to confess,” she said, blunt as ever. She enjoyed stoking his fires with the unyielding blade of her indifference. “You're wastin your time.”

“Mmm. I don't think so,” he purred, smooth. Unfazed. The tattoo gun lowered to her chest. The fact that she could raise her hands and stop him hadn't occurred to her yet.

“I need to name your SIN, Deputy. Hold still.”

“So name it. Leave my skin be.”

“That's not how this works. Before you say 'yes', you must take ownership of your sin. Don't shy away from it!”

Did he think she was going back down, just because he'd cut her binds? Ha! He didn't know her that well, after all. One lil' old tattoo didn't scare her.

“By all means,” she sneered, challenging him. “ _Atone_ me, John.”

Her challenge accepted, he wrapped the belt around his fist once more, pulling gently upward. It pressed into her neck, smelling of leather, of hide. She straightened her back, forcing her chest out, baring it for him. Hammering between her legs, as she settled into the new position.

 _Check this one off as the weirdest tat ever,_ she thought distantly.

“Hold still,” he breathed. “If you move, it will only make it worse.”

The needle pressed into her skin, the old, familiar sting of it nothing novel. The hammering intensified, more than sweat now soaking her drawers. She gazed right into his eyes, as radiant as the Pacific, wanting nothing more than to lose herself inside them while he was inside her. The needle would have to do for now. It took all her control to watch her breathing, make sure her chest didn't move too much. She winced once or twice. Lord, He _did_ have a heavy hand, and after the first few slashes, the pain radiated out.

“Almost done.”

“You work fast,” she murmured. Did someone crank the heat in the bunker to maximum? A rivulet of moisture ran between her breasts, tickling her.

Distracted, John blinked, and wiped dew from his forehead. He tilted his head slightly, getting a different angle. “Not too fast, I hope. Really need this to sink in.”

She bit her lip. He started on the 'T', the gun buzzing away. She scanned every last inch of his anatomy, giving her eyes free rein. Each time he hit a sensitive patch of flesh, she squirmed a little more against the chair. Her nipples perked indents against the mesh sports bra, now visible thanks to the dip of her shirt.

“I was going to do this in public,” John breathed, eyeing her breasts with a knowing smirk. His artist's hand never wavered. “But once I start, I can't stop myself. I must name the demon inside you.”

She had a name in mind, all right. A shameless smile stretched across her lips.

He stepped back, and the buzz of the tattoo gun quieted. The Deputy looked down. The word 'WRATH' was scrawled just above her bosoms in black lettering. The finality of it struck her, sobering her up a bit. She was marked. By him. Forever. She understood permanence from her other tattoos: moments, brief hiccups in the timeline of her life, preserved in ink. Each time, a different version of her laying down on the table. Usually she didn't want to fuck the artist, though. It wasn't unheard of. Ink made people horny.

John let go of the belt, and took a step back, admiring his work, fingers on his chin. “Yes. That will do just fine. It suits you well, Deputy. A shame we'll have to rip it out later.”

She couldn't have cared less about that threat. She stared at his crossed-out 'SLOTH' tattoo, slashed across his chest in big, jagged pink letters. She wanted to run her tongue along each and every one. Her impatient eyes drew downward, to his zipper.

She said, in hushed tones, “Sin looks good on you, John.”

He stepped forward, filling her vision. She drank in the sight of him in the red light. Then he put his hands on her forearms, pressing them into the chair. He went to kiss her, eyes closed at the last second. She stuck out her leg and placed her boot, softly, on his abdomen, pushing him back. He let go, piercing eyes opening, a little caught off guard.

“I am SICK of this goddamned chair,” she huffed, standing. The blood rushed to her numb legs. She ignored it, stumbling over to him. She put her hands and weight on his shoulders, trailing the belt-collar down her spine, and almost fell over from the slickness of his skin.

“Hang on,” John said, steadying her in his arms. He turned away, flipping the work table right side up. She watched how his back muscles moved under his skin as he did so. His jeans sagged down, and her gaze lingered a little too long at the peek of his buttocks. Then he stood toe-to-toe with her, and lowered his hands to her ass, giving the ample flesh an appraising squeeze, before wrapping his arms around her thighs and lifting her to the table. She wrapped them around his waist, hugging him closer. He planted her firmly on the table with a squeak of its oiled hinges.

He pressed his zipper between her thighs, stroking her legs. She looked up at him, expectant, swinging her boots. Kneeling, he seized her by the shin, his hands warm. He brought his mouth down to the denim and she felt the nudge of his teeth below her knee as he bit her through the fabric. Kissed her shin bone. He set about unlacing her boots, fingers working quickly, placing them on the floor. He peeled off her socks, too, balling them up and throwing them over her head.

“Our, uh, confession's not gonna be interrupted, is it, John?” Deputy asked suddenly, glancing at the door. She wanted more of that tequila.

“YOUR confession. And not unless you give me reason to,” he said, face tilted toward her. Her feet free at last, she swung her right one, nudging his crotch with her toes, teasing, groping. He tensed, and she felt just how far, how long his attraction to her went, and blushed.

“Before we continue, I have to know. Are you ready to say it?” he asked.

“Say what?” She wasn't playing coy. She had forgotten the point of this exercise in her want.

“Say ' _yes_ ',” he insisted, plucking at the straps to her shirt like guitar strings. “Accept your atonement. Accept the Father into your heart.”

_Oh, right. That._

“I'd rather accept your dick into my-” she started to say, but he put a hand over her mouth.

“No blasphemy,” he warned. He flicked one of her nipples, hard, through the thin fabric of the bra. The sensation radiated through her breast, into her core.

“Ow!” she cried, through the muffle of his hand. Cheeky bastard. She poked her tongue out and licked the ridges of his fingers playfully. She tasted salt and metal.

“I'm going to keep working on you, sinner,” John pressed staunchly, keeping his hand in place despite her tongue. “Until you say 'yes'.”

Moving fast, he grabbed her wrists, pulling her to him, crushing his lips to hers. The interrogation tactic worked, and he won a whimper out of her. Thanks to the lower height of the table, she had to stretch upward. As she twisted her mouth in time with his, John's grip loosened. She grabbed his hands by the thumbs and brought them to her breasts. His thumbs coasted over her nipples, and her bottom half tensed against the table, her jeans riding up uncomfortably as she ground against him.

 _She wants me now. If I don't get her naked in the next few seconds, she's going to implode in those clothes,_ John thought, amused, but with much more on his mind than a simple bench-fuck. His own pants were starting to become a problem.

He pushed her shirt up, and she lifted her arms, exposing smooth, silky armpits. He peeled it off of her, throwing it away. God, it felt good to have that sweat-soaked thing off. She started to remove her bra, but he stopped her.

“Wrath means you lack a restrained hand,” he said. “You need to learn discipline. I can temper that blade, but you have to let me inside.”

“Oh, my door's _wide_ open,” Deputy chirped, a line that Addie would have approved of.

John sighed, disappointed. Determined. “Not what I meant.”

He peeled the bra up for her instead, watching how the tight fabric stretched her tits upward, before springing them loose with a wobble. Her breasts were sonsie, her coffee-colored nipples situated right in the center, atop the fattiest part. Probably part Italian, judging by her olive tan, the dark roots of her hair, her wide, childbearing hips and narrow shoulders, and that full, tantalizing ass.

She bit her lip, eyes flirting with his. He reached out and groped her breast, letting the swell fill his palm as a bud pressed it, his cock filling out his jeans more in return. Nice. She had enough to play with, but nothing absurd that needed to be hidden under buttons at church. Still, he wasn't sure the Deputy was the kind of woman you brought home to your mother, or to church. Or out in public at all.

She reached between the fork of his legs and groped his stiff dick through his jeans, licking her lips like a cat at the cream. No, definitely not the church type. Though some of the cult women had pleasantly surprised him in bed. Abstinence was the cousin of voracity, after all. He was tired of their caterwauling and flailing legs and wetness just from one touch. He'd prayed for something more challenging, and the Lord giveth.

“Say 'yes',” he offered, squishing her breast into a tighter ball.

She was a steadfast as ever. “You gonna use your tool on me, John?”

He let go suddenly and slapped her right breast, hitting the swollen part with an audible smack. It jiggled before settling back into place. He saw fire leap into her eyes, and more than a little excitement.

“Say 'YES',” he repeated. Smacked the left one, harder, grazing her nipple, sending it wobbling. She ground her teeth, grinning at him like a she-devil.

“Fuck me,” she suggested, a more friendly version of Pazuzu's invitation in _The Exorcist._ That movie had traumatized him as a child. His older brothers had made fun of him for being afraid, for covering his eyes and crying when the girl was smashing her privates bloody with a crucifix. He was grown now, and unafraid. He would smash the demon out of her, if it took all bloody night.

“If I do, will you say it?”

“Mmmm, depends,” she purred, working his dick through his jeans with her palm, digging her fingers in, stroking.

“On what?”

“On how effective your methods are.”

John smoldered with frustration, and when he was frustrated, he felt like overpowering something into submission. Now she had challenged his very reason for being. It was his purpose, to convert the unfaithful. Stubborn sinner. He would have to show her.

Seizing the belt, he drew it tight. She came to meet him, and he felt her nipples graze his abdomen, stoking the fires in his belly. His erection felt like a painful sapling trying to burst free from his pants.

He kissed her again, with more force than before. It felt like he was rearranging her features a bit, re-customizing her character. Their noses rubbed. His beard scratched and burned her cheeks and chin. Below, his hands cruised to her buttocks. He dug in, jamming his hands beneath the band of her jeans, locking his wrists into the hem, squeezing the smooth globes of her ass, and pulled her right up against him.

Deputy shuddered. She wrapped herself around him, as he bit and sucked on her neck possessively, dick grinding against her crotch through their clothes, a little preview of what was to come. One hand pulled free of the jeans and went back to feeling her up, pushing her breast every which way like a joystick. Or the yoke of a plane.

Pesky clothes, the Deputy thought. How to get them off? She was rather enjoying this position, but the jeans had to come off...

John had the solution. While the table was fun, and he intended to use it, it had limited range. He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her, placing her on the floor. The metal was cool and hard against her hot, naked back. Planting a few kisses on her lips, a few nips to her jaw, he positioned between her legs and worked at the button of her jeans, then the zipper, yanking them clean off. Only a pair of black boyshort panties remained, the band stretched taut over her hip bones.

She tried to sit up and unzip him, but he stopped her, grabbing her wrists.

“Say 'yes',” he said once more. “Submit.”

Deputy rolled her eyes. She was getting tired of hearing it!

“Nope.”

She needed more convincing. He pressed her into the floor, hands by her head, his hips grinding hers. His cock was trying to work its way free past the zipper, but it still needed some help. She traced her fingers under the hem of his jeans and felt nothing but the smooth, damp skin of his ass. She slid her hand around the front and gave his tool a squeeze (oh yes; that would do just fine) but a realization stopped her.

“No underwear?” she gasped. Why was she not surprised? She said jokingly, “Dirty fucker.”

“You're not so clean yourself,” he reminded her. He licked between her breasts, tasting sticky sweat and grit, and she melted into the floor, her legs curling.

“Filthiest woman I ever set eyes on.”

“Fine. We're both tainted,” she huffed, enjoying his weight against her. He took the belt and pulled her up, resting on his knees while still straddling her pelvis. Pulled her further, til she was bent over, level with his crotch. He unbuttoned his pants, unzipped, and slid those jeans down at last. Her eyes followed a trail of neatly trimmed, black pubic hair down...

What came loose was handsome, pink at the tip, and pointed at her like an over-sized, veined finger. It had something metal on the tip.

 _Oh my god, he's pierced down there,_ she realized giddily, blushing at that remnant from his heathen days, one he apparently was loathe to part with.

Impatient now, John tugged the belt and her head toward him. She licked the silver ball lodged in his helmet first, nudging it around with her tongue. It was pea-sized, smooth and warm, hard to the touch. She slid him into her mouth and down her throat, her back and abdominals crunching to provide rhythm (there at last was that salt she'd wanted with her tequila). She didn't feel the piercing much, and was secretly grateful he hadn't gone with something larger. Her entire upper body moved around him, her throat a tight, wet water slide. His free hand found her left breast and pinched and rolled her nipple, and she moaned with a mouthful of him.

As if performing one of his baptisms, John placed his hand on the top of her head, but instead of scripture, his lips only released low sounds of pleasure. After a while of that, she withdrew from him, and he turned his attention to the boyshorts. He ran his hands down her obliques, savoring their curvature under his calluses, kissing a line down her light abs, below her bellybutton. He slid her underwear off in one go, revealing a neat, black, rectangular landing strip above her mound.

“Very nice,” he breathed. That was something he missed about normal women. Cultists didn't shave anything visible, let alone their pubes. Razors were expensive.

The Deputy beamed at him. _Way to go, Addie!_ She inwardly thanked the promiscuous helicopter pilot for her landscaping advice. Her giddiness quickly ebbed. The neatness of her pubic hair was just about all that was neat down there. Sweating in that chair for hours had left her swamp flooded, to say the least.

John wasn't much better off. Everywhere she touched him was hot. Slippery. Sticky. They were a fucking sinful mess. It didn't stop him, though. In fact, he seemed to get off on it. He went between her legs and lapped at her like a thirsty puppy. His tongue sent all the right vibrations up and down her body, hassling her clit so well he might have studied her playbook. With how well he seemed to know her anatomy, he'd been studying something else, when he should have had his nose bent to his religious texts. She yanked on his shoulders after a while, needing to have him inside.

He had much more in mind, but he could be as patient as a saint when needed. Kissing her, letting her taste herself (she jammed her tongue into his mouth in her insistence), the Deputy still supine, he hooked his elbow around one of her legs by the back of her knee, digging his fingers into her thick thigh. He angled his cock with precision, gliding inside her with ease. She welcomed him with a few gasps, not really feeling the piercing, until he bumped her cervix. She tilted up, felt him retract, then butt against her again, a little hard pea of something else nudging inside, adding extra sensation.

Biting and kissing above the belt at her neck, he fucked her on the floor in that position, with her hips tilted slightly into his straight-and-narrow ones. Dep took it all gladly, continuing to stroke his hair, tracing the inked letters on his chest, tangling herself up in him. He felt her yielding at last, a softening of her limbs, her spine.

“Good,” he murmured in her ear, between her moans of assent, her hands anchored into his shoulders by the nails. “We're making progress. But you still have to submit to me.”

He withdrew, his dick nodding, steadying his heart, fighting against his desire to go back in and finish. He removed the belt from her neck, tossing it aside. A little gesture of trust.

“Let me taste you again,” he offered. The Deputy did not blush. She was flattered. Who was she to refuse?

“Me too,” she insisted, with a peevish smile.

He understood, and lay on his back. She spun herself around and backed her fertile haunches over him, lowering herself toward his mouth, his beard tickling her privates. She shivered all over, giggling quietly, pleased with herself. Then his tongue snaked out and found her clit, and she was compelled to stretch her body, sliding down his tight, wet torso, seizing his shaft. The fact that it had her essence on it didn't bother her at all; judging by John's ferocity between her lips, she could say the same for him.

She took him into her mouth again, the taste of herself just an afterthought. Joined at both ends, they took turns pleasing one another with their mouths. From John's view, he saw multiple ways to work on this sinner. Grabbing her ass tightly, he pulled her, harder, onto his face, sucking the hood of her clit, letting her juices soak his beard. Rocking a little, she sat back as her pleasure heightened sharply. Glancing behind, realizing (feeling) how much he was enjoying dining on her, she put more weight on him, smothering him, grinding her clit against his mouth.

With a lusty growl, he dragged his tongue from her clit to her pussy, penetrating her with it, wetting her already-soaked passage. He didn't seem to mind that she was no longer paying any attention his cock, either. He was still sprung and ready to go and...

...and his tongue left, dragged onwards, to tease the sensitive circle of her asshole. She clamped her teeth on her bottom lip, hairs raised on her neck. _YIKES!_

John felt her tense, wicked thoughts coursing through his mind. Had she no sarcastic remarks for him now? No objections to his ministrations? Probably, she was concerned about her hygiene, but aside from sweat, she was all-clear. He took sick pleasure in her squirming as he grazed her again.

The Deputy was stricken dumb for a few moments. She was no stranger to this. She rather enjoyed it, under the right circumstances, but she hadn't been expecting this level of depravity from a man preached piety and chastity. Yet here she had him, on the floor, dining on her ass and making her like it. _Fuck, oh fuck me. I'm gonna let him do it, too. Jesus, this is escalating fast!_

To the point, he pointed his tongue and jammed it downward, and she gasped, her heart jumping in her throat. Her want of him was so bad, she bent and attacked his cock, sucking and stroking while he played his dirty games. He tongued her a few more times, tracing the puckered indentations, then wet a finger...

...The Deputy felt something intrude, and she sat up again.

“Um,” was all she said, tongue-tied. He slid the finger in and out a few times, not far, up to his third knuckle, heating things up.

“Something the matter, Deputy?”

She squirmed again. “N-no. I mean, I haven't...ah!!!”

The finger explored her further, until there was nothing left. It pressed down gently, then moved in subtle circles, causing a pleasant ache. Not much pain, only pressure. Slick spilled between her legs as she felt herself open up, giving in to her filthy desires.

She gasped a polite warning, “Didn't come prepared for that!”

“You're fine,” was all he said. “Perfectly fine. Besides, you told me your door was wide open, remember?”

 _Ohh, bastard._ She relaxed. He slid his index finger out. He kissed the underside of her buttock, bit it, and slapped her lightly on the thigh. She dismounted and sat back on her knees, eyes bright and fierce, thighs jostling together. She shivered like a druggie looking for her fix. John guessed some of his wicked ideas had passed onto her. Two black marbles swallowed her eyes.

Sitting up, he grabbed the bottle of tequila and took a generous swig, swishing it around in his mouth, and spat it out. He wiped his mouth and took another sip, before swallowing. He offered it to her and she reached for it.

“Say 'yes',” he teased, pulling it out of her grasp.

“Fuck yourself!”

“Not the right answer,” he said, and set it out of the way. She crawled after it, down his legs and into his lap, and he lifted it over her head, smiling wryly.

 _So that's how it is, is it?_ Rolling her eyes, the Deputy straddled and mounted him instead, lowering herself onto his cock wordlessly. She placed her hands on his shoulders, digging her fingernails in, he was covered in pink half-moons. She started riding him, her knees rubbing against the floor. John set the bottle down and returned with upward thrusts of his own, his abs and buttocks clenching, piercing her in the middle. She threw her hair back, arched her spine, and wailed on the last one as her clit took some of the friction.

She intended to ride out her climax on the floor, but he wasn't having it. She still owed him a confession. On her next rise, he pulled himself free of her wet hug.

“On the table. I want you there.”

She didn't seem too bothered by his interruption. She sat on the work bench. He followed, cock jutting below his waist. She separated her legs and he aligned himself to her, teasing her entrance. Reached between her cleft and stroked her little nerve-bundle like a stuck elevator button.

“Say it,” he hissed.

She looked up at him, incredulous. He didn't give up, did he?

For her response, she put her legs on his shoulders and eased back, offering herself up to him. He hugged her thighs and inserted, and she felt sweet relief as he filled her again. Pumped a few times, slowly. Stroked her clit. The both of them watched their joining, each willing the other to give in to their desires.

“Say it, Deputy.”

She shook her head, eyes locked with his. He hugged her to him and thrust home, again and again, groaning into her neck, “You can. Say it. Say 'yes' to me. One...little word...is all I want to hear.”

She clawed at his back, lost in his bliss. All she could manage were sighs and gasps.

“If you won't...” he started. It felt like he was carving out a new space inside. She was starting to ache, hissing on each bump and return, diving and resurfacing under waters rippling with tension. He kept his pace, but didn't go as deep.

“...then I won't stop.”

He kissed her, his mouth tasting of liquor, her scent clinging to his beard. She bit his lip until a piece of it bled. He moaned into her mouth, the temptation to finish consuming him. Still, he paused, then she felt his fullness drawn from her with a bolt of longing.

“Wait, why'd you stop?” she asked.

“You seem tired, Deputy,” John resumed his role, backing away. He extended his hand, helping her down off the table. “Maybe you should rest.”

He led her to the end of it and turned her backside to him. Pushed her parallel to the table surface, her torso laying flat, ass upturned, feet on her tiptoes. Gazing at that strip of flesh between her legs, John hadn't seen a finer view since moving to Montana. Panting, Dep rested her head against the grain. John picked the discarded belt up. Pulled it tight on both ends, making the leather snap. He cupped her buttocks with one hand, tracing the underside lovingly.

He swung the strap down, slapping her cheek hard, leaving a red mark, eyes lighting up as her flesh rippled. A red mark formed almost immediately. The Deputy felt the pain, followed by a surge of arousal that set her nipples hard again and had her clit tensing, complaining to be touched.

“Say it!” he cried, and threw the belt away. He pushed between her shoulder blades, compressing her into the table, fingers encircling her neck. His cock bumped between her thighs, wetting them.

“Say it, Deputy!”

She laughed into her own fist and shook her head, speechless. Infuriated, unbelievably aroused, John nodded in acceptance. Very well. She wanted to take him as far as he could go. He was hoping she would last this long. It made the breaking of her all the sweeter.

He dove into her cunt yet again. As she squirmed and bent to receive him, he wet his finger, pressing it between her cheeks. The Deputy had just enough sense to dip her spine in anticipation. He inserted it all the way again, deep into her, and her muscles didn't clamp down on him as much. She quaked under the pressure of having both her holes filled, but suddenly he withdrew both, stepping away. He returned with a tube of lube from the toolbox.

 _Okay, what the-?_ She asked aloud, “Why do you even HAVE that, John?”

He only smirked, and squirted out a generous amount onto his index finger. She froze. He pushed it inside her ass again. She expected it to be cold, but it was so hot in that room she only felt the warm glide of his digit and the thickness of the lube. He pushed and pulled a few more times with lewd, urgent tugs on her muscles. She heard the tube squirt again, and the next thing she felt was something blunt and slippery pressing on her, the hard piercing nudging snugly against her ring. Instead of asking her to say yes, John spread her cheeks apart with one hand, and used the other to press his helmet in.

 _Oh fuck. This is happening._ Deputy relaxed as much as she could, breathing. It almost burned at first as his girth stretched her out, but once the head broke through, the rest of it tunneled in without a hitch. She looked back in panic, unused to such an invasive sensation, sure a disaster had occurred. But John soldiered on, pressing in and out, removing all but the head a few times, working her loose.

“Breathe,” he reminded her, reading her tense body language. He reached around and stroked her clit for her, seeing as her hands were too busy gouging the wood.

Deputy inhaled, exhaled. The more she relaxed, the easier it got, and soon she was taking just as much perverse pleasure out of it as he was. _Yes. More. Yes. Deeper. Again! GOD._ Furiously blushing, she pressed her forehead into the table and clenched her hands into fists, baring her teeth as if someone had just told her the most offensive joke in the world.

“Still nothing?” John taunted. He removed himself completely, and she sighed with relief. Staring at the little hole he'd moments ago had stretched out to take all of him, the heat of his desire radiated from his body. She felt lube, mixed with her own fluids, dribbling down her thigh. They were both filthy, but a shower was the last thing either of them wanted.

Without waiting for her answer, he drenched his cock in lube again and pushed in again, eager for seconds. The grip of her ass was the most pleasing thing to him, the rest of his shaft enveloped in warmth, but without the tight hug and pull of a woman's walls. Two entirely different pleasures, things he loved too much to give up.

It was too much. Deputy felt herself giving way, and fast. Her resolve crumbling, she wailed with each profane thrust. He sped up, bucking his hips, the table rocking beneath her, and she struggled to stay on her tip-toes and keep herself angled right. John gripped her rump and watched it bounce as he fucked her, using less length on each push than he would with her cunt, only a few inches of his meat peeking at him between her jiggling folds.

“Say it,” he breathed for the umpteenth time, finding it hard to speak. He slowed down. Withdrew. Teased her asshole with his cock, tracing it in circles, prodding her incessantly.

“Mmmph!” she shrieked into the table, her legs teetering on her toes.

More lube to the tip. He reentered, soft, easy. Yielding. She lifted a foot and groaned. Placed it back down. Lifted it again. Her nails dug into the wood. He smiled wickedly and slapped one of her cheeks, right on the sore, red belt line.

“Say it, Dep-”

When he set his pace once again, she ground her teeth, fingers flexing. She couldn't take it anymore. He was gonna fill THAT hole, the taboo one, and she could only think of one word:

“YES! Yes, yes John, yes....” she trailed off, gibbering, her orgasm pounding to get out like cougar trapped in box.

Satisfied, John pounded a little harder, a little faster, their flesh slapping together. Hot lead spread rapidly below her bellybutton. Her nipples dragged across the table, sore. Her fingers curled and uncurled. For a moment she thought about putting a hand between her legs, but there was no time, no need, it was happening NOW. His cock slammed deep, there was a bumping pressure against her vagina, she could feel him pressing on her g-spot (was that even possible!?). The Deputy reared her head and let go of her last bit of resistance, legs shaking with the jarring clench-and-release of her orgasm, a proper, sopping mess gushing out, water-falling all over him.

On the last flick of his hips, embedded up to the hilt in sweet, tight, convert ass, John arched his spine with a ragged, low grunt, injecting his hot, liquid seed, missing fertile ground by a membrane or two. Whoops.

“...yes,” the Deputy huffed softly, one final time. She thudded her forehead into the table. _Bastard!_

“Good,” John panted. He stroked the small of her back, easing out of her slow in a squishy, congealed mess of lube. Dep hung there on the table, breathing, her legs gelatin, a pair of useless things.

Satisfied, whistling the same tune from when he'd first walked in, John grabbed towels for them from a crate in the corner, handing her one. After he cleaned himself off, he threw his jeans and belt back on, and checked something by the door. The Deputy planted one foot at a time into her underwear and shimmied them up, carefully watching John. He walked back to her, grabbed the bottle of tequila, took another swig, and handed it to her.

Still naked from the waist up, she ignored the bottle and hugged him close, pressing the raised, black letters of her new tattoo into his old, scarred one. Sin against sin. He went rigid. Relaxed. Put his arms around her, fingers grazing the sleek, warm, dimpled flesh of her lower back. So distracted was he, he failed to notice the hand digging for something in his back pocket.

“Wait here,” he told her, breaking away. He left through the same door as before, locking it behind him.

But the Deputy had no intention of waiting. Or staying. She jumped into her jeans, yanked the crumpled shirt over her head, and fled down the stairs. She snuck her way out through a secret entrance, the key she'd lifted from John making things a whole lot easier, the locks on the doors just seemed to say 'yes! I'll open up for you, no problemo!' She searched for Hudson on her way out, but to no avail. With a jolt of guilt, she realized they would have to come back for her. 

She only paused to look back once, after she was out of the bunker and into the summer night air, drawing deep, refreshing breaths...

 

...she drew a deep breath and tipped the shot glass full of whiskey back, slamming it on the bar.

She'd arrived back at Fall's End the night before, expecting John to rain fire and fury down on them with his planes. But the skies above the Spread Eagle were mysteriously silent, the roads empty. That had been her first surprise. Her second was when Hudson had suddenly appeared on the edge of town. She'd been dropped off via ATV in the early hours of the morning: haggard, dirty, bruised, but free. Alive, to fight another day. When she'd stumbled into Fall's End, she carried nothing, save for an opened bottle of tequila that her captors had dropped off with her.

“Fess up!” Adelaide said, her cheeks flushed. She and Mary May leaned across the bar, staring at her intently.

“Well?” Mary May drawled. “Did ya'll...?”

With an indignant sigh, the Deputy yanked down her shirt, displaying her new tattoo for the two women to gawk at.

Adelaide popped her Nicorette, slapped the Deputy on the arm, and winked. “Landing strip. Works every time!”

The Deputy couldn't help but grin. “Yeah, it worked, all right.”

“Ohh, that smile. How good WAS it?” Adelaide cackled and cracked open another beer. “Did you get a nice, big helping of-”

Deputy was spared having to go into juicy details. Just then, the TV on the end of the bar buzzed. Mary May turned up the volume, and Addie flung an empty beer bottle at the guy that insisted on playing noisy arcade games instead of helping.

Deputy watched as John appeared on the screen, catching him mid-broadcast.

“...and I have personally gotten to know the Deputy well. Very well, indeed. One might say we are now siblings in sin.”

“Ohhh shit!” Addie crowed, slapping her thigh. Mary May blushed for the Deputy, who was turning red herself, but not with embarrassment. The nail bat came off the shoulder strap, clutched in her right fist.

“I have put my seal on her,” John continued, with a revealing smile, eyes lighting up. “To make her easier for us to find her. If you see her, be sure to give her my greeting...with a bliss bullet.”

The bat connected with the TV screen, bursting it into pieces. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately. The guy at the arcade yelped and dove for cover, thinking they were under attack. Mary May shook her head and swept up the glass. Addie stepped outside for a hit off her boy-toy's vape.

The Deputy lowered the bat, calmly sat down at the bar, and poured herself another shot.

“Leave the bottle,” she told Mary May. She put some crumpled bills on the table for it, and for the busted TV.

“Shit-on-a-shingle! We got Peggies incoming!” she heard Addie shout. Out the window, the shadow of a big, silver plane blocked the moonlight.

Deputy gulped her shot, grimacing. It was going to be a long night, but she'd had longer.

-END


End file.
